What's new

Your worst merlin park

The worst uk park owned by merlin

  • Legoland Windsor

    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • Thorpe Park

    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • Chessington

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Alton Towers

    Votes: 1 33.3%

  • Total voters
    3

A-Kid

Giga Poster
Legoland is for kids and I didn't really enjoy it. So that wins this.

Chessie second. I do like chessington, it has some good rides and the park is nice-ish. I just hate the layout!


I love Thorpe for the rides, Amity, great ride-ops. Am I the only one who likes the atmosphere there?

Altons the best park by a long way. I does everything I want out of it!!
 

Nemesis Inferno

Strata Poster
Just to let people down, Chessie probs would be focusing on the zoo bit for the next three years, so you can continue to spite it if you wish...

It has meerkats... And tiger cubs, hence it is win :p

Ain't been to Legoland for years, so cannot judge it, don't think it was even owned by Merlin back then as well...

Thorpe has 4 rides I'm happy doing then going home... And has the WORST maintenance out of all of them...

Every park in the world has faults and good points here, and for some people to reason that crap food (aside from price and value) is a valid one are stupid, since all the parks (bar Legoland) have similar if not THE SAME restaurants... And if you don't like the food, bring sandwiches?

Also Chessie has several places to sunbathe in the summer :p
 

spicy

Giga Poster
Chessington is awesome, I don't know how people can't like it, its got the best atmosphere apart from AT obviously, its just a really nice, fun day out.

1. AT
2. CWoA
3. TP
4. LegoLand
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
I'm not sure how you can really do this.

For me with a family going to a park, Legoland is easily going to win over Thorpe. Me going on my own as a thrill seeker, Thorpe is going to win.

It's like asking which is the best breakfast cereal: Baby food, Frosties, Fry up or Can'o'lager. They're all good in their own ways depending on age and circumstances.

I've been to Legoland 4 times, and still haven't been on every ride or seen everything on offer. I'd take MMF there time and again if we lived closer - certainly more than I would any of the other three parks.

However, with Minor_Furie in tow, I need to take his needs into account too, so the other three parks really meet that, with Alton and Chessington being the best 'all rounders'.

So for me, really, it's Thorpe or Legoland, because they don't offer enough out of the range they aim for. However, it's not a choice that can be made simply, so I wont :p
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
food....

Legoland is the worst. Plain and simple lol

I really dont get this whole " Thorpe's food sucks" Its Pizza Hut, KFC and Burger King... I bet when you all go out in your town or whatever you eat there?? yeah exactly! If eating at them places annoys you eat in the restaurant in the dome! They do good food lol! At the end of the day food is food and yes, Theme parks will charge more for it because they know people will eat there, And that is the way they make more money out of us! Just deal with it lol
 

SaiyanHajime

CF Legend
When I went to Legoland years and years and years ago, it was crap-bloody-tastic.

As for BK, KFC and Pizza hut at the parks - better the devil you know. I'd rather eat food that i know what it tastes like, 90% of the time, than some random park food. Also, BK and KFC are the same price in the park as out of. Which is great. You're paying no more than you usually would. It feels better. Less captive-market bull****.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
I haven't actually been to any Merlin parks, but from what I've seen, Legoland is the worst.
 

Rob

Mega Poster
Well, when i saw this I thought it would be a Thorpe slag fest and I'm quite amazed it isn't.

For me it's Chessington. Legoland has a nice consistant... Lego theme. It is happy and cheerful and looks quite nice. Personally I thought Chessington was an absoloute waste of time. It made me think of Flamingo Land in the 90's. There was lots of hit and miss themeing, gaps where rides are missing/not fitting on the footprint (such as Eclipse on Samurai's site). The staff were nice but the atmosphere just wasn't to the Alton/Thorpe/Legoland standard.
 

Richie

Hyper Poster
Never been to Legoland.

From the ones I have been to definately Chessington. I really don't like that place. When I visit Legoland i'll get back to you :D
 

spicy

Giga Poster
Joey said:
Personally, I think anyone who doesn't like Chessington is delusional.

Never a truer word spoken.

Chessington is one of the nicest parks I have ever visited, its just got a really nice feel to it, I fail to see why anyone wouldn't like it.
 

Richie

Hyper Poster
You know it's a bad park when the best ride there is a wave swinger with water features.

Chessington is boring and genuinly crap.
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
spicy said:
Joey said:
Personally, I think anyone who doesn't like Chessington is delusional.

Never a truer word spoken.

Chessington is one of the nicest parks I have ever visited, its just got a really nice feel to it, I fail to see why anyone wouldn't like it.

It doesn't have a mass of thrill rides, and the only reason to go to a theme park is to ride the biggest and fastest coasters - so every other park fails miserably.

I love Chessington for what it is, but I'm a fan of theme parks, and coasters are the supporting act for me. I like to have a day in a park, and enjoy the coasters as part of it. Not enjoy the coasters and that's it. I can have a full day and really enjoy myself at Chessington, but at Thorpe, once I've done the rides (two hours tops on a slack day), I'm bored and want to go home - I may as well be at the town park.

However, Thorpe has some good(ish) rides, and you can enjoy the time you spend riding them, it's just that riding all day doesn't do anything for me... I need more from a day out.
 

SaiyanHajime

CF Legend
Richie said:
You know it's a bad park when the best ride there is a wave swinger with water features.

Chessington is boring and genuinly crap.
Dragon's Fury is generally considered to be bloody amazing, especially for what it is, by the vast majority of enthusiasts... And the looks on the riders faces, no matter what age, enforces that it is a suburb ride further.

You don't know what you're talking about. Sorry. This isn't about opinion anymore when people say things as if they are common regarded fact among majority when they are not.

I have no issue with you thinking differently to the majority, but you have to accept and take into consideration that you have "unusual" views on the quality of coasters. :lol:
 

Screaming Coasters

Strata Poster
Reading what furie said -

I think some of the enjoyment of a park is the walking between rides. Chessington has a fair bit of walking whereas Thorpe doesn't. You finish one ride and you are faced by another. Thats one of Thorpes problems, it is too small. Parks need that walking time between rides to make the day more enjoyable and longer-lasting. I reckon that the park will feel a lot bigger when the new area is built. The infilling looks huge behind colossus where the new land and coaster is going and I also noticed a huge amount of infilling by Stealth which will probably be the hotel?
 

Ben

CF Legend
Yes, Fury is amazing. It however does not make Chessington good because of two reasons:

A. It's never open.
B. If it does manage to not break for more then five minutes, the queue gets so huge and slow I want to kill myself halfway through and don't bother.

Plus, one good ride =/= great park.

And the fact that Chessington is so overly extortionate for what you get annoys me. And that there's nothing fun, quirky and great you can mess about on and just have random fun without riding. And there's no decent shows or anything which add up to being "more then rides". It has dodgy theming, which other then Rameses and Tomb Blaster, is pretty much crap. It's certainly not into the "more then rides because of theming" that even Alton manages to reach. Case in point, how tatty is the Mine Train? How crummy is Vampire's queue area now? How just, broken, does Rattlesnake look? It's full of ex-theming which now just sucks. I'd even support the view that Thorpe is better themed.

And then there's the fact they've added what? Some fish and ducks since '04? Great. And a relocated Ferris Wheel. Fantastic.

Chessington just fails at all aspects. It's a cruddy theme park and a cruddier zoo. Put them together, and it's just completely cruddy, and I'd happily never go back... if Fury wasn't there. But, it's never open anyway...

But, then I guess since I've been to actually decent family parks that do it right like Disney, Efteling and even Plopsaland, and that throws Chessington sharply into perspective, I'm just delusional. Right, Joey?
 
Top